Where there's never an unspoken adorable thought.

All My Exes are R’s

The first time I learned that one of my ex-boyfriends was a republican, I responded with something like this:

WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!!!!!! YOU’RE A REPUBLICAN!?!?!?!!?!?!?!

I had been living in Vermont for almost 18 years at that point, and — frankly — I don’t think I’d ever had a dinner, worked, hiked, swam, or walked with a republican in all those years. I was quite sheltered politically, which was lovely, because everything that qualified me for hippie in southern New England, was just de rigueur in Vermont.

But back to the X Rs.

Since that moment of discovery, every one of the guys I dated (unsuccessfully!) has turned out to be a republican. How do I know? That would be called, Facebook.

There’s nothing WRONG with dating republicans. I mean, HELL-OOOOOOOOO. I grew up in Wilton, Connecticut, birthplace of Money Managers. If you date AT ALL, you are pretty much going to shoot a little Alex P. Keaton in that barrel. No, that is not a problem for me. What’s interesting, is how TELLING it was. How everything makes sense now.

Before my husband, I was clearly dating people who were Not The Right Type. I knew something had to change and up until recently, I just thought that meant that I had yet to discover nice Jewish men. But the more republicans I discovered I had dated, the more I realized this was not about dating too many WASP-y jocks. This was bigger.

There is all this talk now about how the political parties in Washington stand so far apart on the issues there’s no hope for conversation without rancor. The thing that always cracks me up is that this is supposed to be something new. I am here to tell you, that I have had enough award-winning arguments with republican males throughout the 1980s and 90s to prove that there is nothing new about it.

This is not Mary Matalin.

I will never understand couples like Mary Matalin and James Carville, especially since I always confuse Mary Matalin, the republican pundit, with Marlee Matlin, the deaf actress. Do (Mary and Jim) have parenting issues because Mary is strict with the girls and James not so much? Can they not sit down and watch television together because Mary likes NCIS and James Mad Men? Does Mary watch Fox News and annoy James because he likes — well — anything else? Does Mary only buy American cars while James pisses her off buying European? Do they argue because Mary is in favor of less credit card debt, while James racks up the bills? What if Mary got pregnant and James didn’t want to have another baby? WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY SAY TO ONE ANOTHER IF GEORGE W. BUSH’S NAME COMES UP???

I dunno. Let’s just assume they both have similar dishwasher loading philosophies.

Bottom line, now that I have been happily married for almost 20 years to someone who shares all my core values, what would I recommend to all the young women out there who hope to find someone who shares their adorable liberal values? Well, definitely avoid lacrosse players and start asking guys on the cross country team if they are Jewish.*

You can pretend he’s Jewish.

* This recommendation is based on an n=2 (not just an n=1 (my husband)) and you can make it an n=3 if you pretend that Michael Cera’s character in Juno was Jewish. ALTHOUGH, Michael Cera is from Canada and you can pretty much replace Nice JEWISH Guy with Nice CANADIAN Guy. It’s all the same thing.